VALERIE LEON |
Together
with Madeline Smith, Valerie Leon exemplifies the problems faced by aspiring
British movie actresses in the 1970s. Tall, statuesque and feminine, Valerie
was an impressive screen presence but nevertheless had to make do with a succession
of bawdy comedies within a movie career that made little progress.
Valerie
had been stage struck from an early age and had acquired a taste for performing
when, as schoolgirls, she and her friend, Eleanor Bron - later an accomplished
and admired player in British satire - went carol-singing one Christmas.
On leaving school Valerie went to France to learn the language and to try for a career as a fashion model. Being built like a woman instead of a twelve year old boy frustrated her modeling ambitions, and so Valerie returned to London.
She obtained a job as a trainee fashion buyer with Harrods, and while there, joined the company's Amateur Dramatic Society. On being offered more money by a theatre group, Valerie left Harrods and went on tour with "The Belle Of New York". She secured further stage work, including the London production of "Funny Girl", and another tour, this time with Brian Rix in "She's Done it Again"..
Valerie began to receive offers of television work, including commercials.
Her height
and femininity made Valerie an ideal foil for comedians, and she appeared with
most of Britain's leading television comedians, in particular with two diminutive
players, Charlie Drake and Ronnie Corbett, over whom she towered. However
Valerie became famous with an attention-grabbing role as a karate chopping beauty
in a T V commercial for men's after-shave that was screened regularly for several
months.
Thereafter she was very busy indeed with work on stage, on television and in movies. Newspaper and magazines were interested in her now and Valerie's pictures were printed widely together with trivia which nearly always mentioned her height (5'11") and vital statistics (38.25.38).
Valerie's
stage
work ranged from farce to pantomime, where she sometimes played principal boy,
including Prince Charming in Cinderella. Her film work was also mainly in comedies,
including the "Carry-On" series, until suddenly Hammer Films gave
her the female lead in "Blood From The Mummy's Tomb".
Aware of her height, Hammer cast Valerie first and then chose very tall actors to partner her. Valerie made a strong impression in this dual role, combining ostentatious femininity with a homicidal lust for revenge, and there was general speculation that she would go on to bigger (and better) parts.
It was not to be. Despite widespread enthusiasm for her performance - which continues to this day: the recent DVD of "Blood From The Mummy's Tomb" has brought forth a torrent of praise for both her acting and her sex appeal - Valerie Leon never again played a leading role in a movie.
The film
offers Valerie did receive were for supporting parts in bawdy comedies which
she seems to have accepted without resentment.
She continued as a regular in the "Carry On" series and appeared in several sex comedies with titles like "Can You Keep It Up For A Week?" and "No Sex Please - We're British".
Her movie career petered out at the end of the 1970s although in 1983 she appeared in the 'unofficial' James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" with Sean Connery. (Valerie had previously been in "The Spy Who Loved Me" with Roger Moore.)
That Valerie Leon was not given leading roles after her success in "Blood From The Mummy's Tomb" is a reflection of the movie industry's loss of direction. Thirty years earlier, the film industry knew that glamorous women of formidable femininity would lure audiences to the box office, but by the 1970s movie makers had forgotten many of the fundamentals of their business.
Actresses like Valerie Leon were not the only losers. Film audiences were deprived of one of the basic attractions of movies, and to this day the film business has not yet re-learned the art of purveying female glamour.